Grenzmauer 75
by ClockworkRaven
Summary: "The ghost was back again." Berlin Wall fic. (edit2: rewritten version posted to my AO3 account with the same title, now added as chp2)
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

* * *

The first time the ghost was seen, it was standing directly next to the wall, no one having seen the figure cross the open area. The dogs had not barked, no other tower gave any was just a white haired figure facing the wall. Its head was tilted back, arm raised as if to help amplify a shout. The safety catches of guns clicked off, the subtle noise somehow snagging the figure's attention for it half turned-and vanished mid movement.

The abrupt appearance and disappearance of the figure was dismissed as a figment brought on by too little sleep and stress (alternatives ignored for this was the modern age). Then the figure came back.

This time the reaction was faster (no time spent gaping at an impossibility) and guns were drawn and fired-into nothing. It was not that they missed, but rather that the barrage of bullets had simply spun through air rather than flesh and blood. The figure spun around and _laughed _, as heedless of the bullet holes that riddled the concrete behind him (the voice that carried so well was male) as he had been of barbed wire and nail beds. The cackle emitting from the slender figure was loud and wild (full of the viscous joy of battles long gone and the screams of dying soldiers-) and froze the guards in their places as the man vanished again.

The specter's eyes had been red, was the insisted color. Red like blood and rubies (red of an albino ghost).

The third time there was no crack of gunfire, only silence in the tower as the guards watched the ghost in the grey of winter's light. He was calling something, they knew, words that were snatched from their ears before they could be heard by frozen wind (unlike that terrible laugh). Over and over he would call, until the sky began to darken (what sort of ghost only appeared in the day?) and then he'd be gone.

He became a regular occurrence, this strange ghost of theirs (ghost of the hundreds fallen, of a single lost soul). Always seen calling to someone on the other side of the barrier.

Eventually words became distinguishable, the same two over and over and over. West and Ludwig, Ludwig and west. (One would think why "west" was called would be obvious enough, but some insisted it was said like a name-) and one guard jested that the "Ludwig" was a tall blond gentleman he'd met once during the war ("Quiet fellow", he recalled, "Always around this one Italian.") It was taken as the joke it was meant as for years, until curiosity drove the recaller to look up the man and discovered the man had an albino brother.

Once, just the once, one man swore he heard a reply one still day when the world had frozen into silence-that he heard someone calling "East!"

When the wall was overrun and the order came ("Do not shoot" thank God) a guard caught sight of a familiar shock of white hair (he could see facial features now, high cheekbones under the crimson eyes) within the shifting, joyous mass of people. He lost sight of the ghost for a moment, then he saw the ghost trapped in the arms of a tall blond, both clutching the other as if they would disappear. The stunned guard's gaze watched them until the ecstatic crowd surged and the ghosts were gone.

(East and West together again.)

* * *

This could be AU, could be canon, it's meant to be ambiguous. (And wikipedia tells me the fourth generation of the wall was called "Grenzmauer 75", hence the title. If that is incorrect, I apologize).


	2. Rewrite

It was a quiet night; lazily falling snow muffled the world. The lights on the Wall and from the watchtower glinted off ice and metal. The room inside the watchtower was warmer than outside, but not enough for either of the two guards to remover their coats. Jansen leaned more heavily against his fist, tapping his pencil against the table. He hated filling out forms, and was currently hoping if he glared hard enough the dammed thing would spontaneously combust. Three years of filling out the things and it hadn't happened yet. He still tried. Hasek, the lucky bastard, was too new to have to do most of the paperwork. "Oi, Hasek. How much would I have to pay you in candy to do this paperwork for me?" Silence. Jansen looked up. The other man was standing utterly still by the window. He set his pencil down, frowning. "It's there again," Hasek hissed, fingers tightening around the stock of his gun. Jansen's chair clattered as he stood. Hasek twitched at the noise. Jansen joined Hasek by the window, settling his own gun in the crook of his arm. He looked out, trying to spot what had Hasek so spooked. Past barbed wire, mesh, beds of nails and silent dogs stood a white haired man, bare inches from the concrete barrier. Oh. Him again. Jansen had seen him often enough to know firing on him did no good. Bullets just passed through, like he was a- Jansen shook himself, then reached over and poked Hasek in the side. 'That's not going to do anything," he said, nodding to the gun in Hasek's pale knuckled grip. Hasek snorted, eyes still locked on the distant figure. "Makes me feel better." "Mhm. You've heard the stories, right?" Hasek shifted uneasily, "Yeah, I have." Jansen leaned against the wall, a wicked grin emerging. "Then you know they say he's got eyes like the devil himself, red as fresh blood. And that his teeth are a wolf's, and he's got the tongue of a snake." Hasek was getting steadily paler, eyes wider than attempting night vision could explain. God, he's young. And gullible. Jansen thought, biting down a grin. He leaned closer, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "There's nothing under that oat but ice and bone, and decayed rodents eating themselves in his belly." Hasek was leaning toward him now, eyes huge and still locked on the man by the Wall. "He's got a thousand faces, all of the rotting dead." Jansen leaned even closer. "And he pisses butterflies." He finished. A pause. "You utter bastard." Hasek yelped, finally releasing his death grip on his gun to smack Jansen across the stomach as the other man doubled over laughing. "Good God man, your face!" "Yeah, yeah, taking the piss out of the new guy." Hasek grumbled. Grinning, Jansen continued, "Well, the red eyes bit is accu-" "West!" Jansen flinched violently, the raw grief in the scream grating against his skin and sinking into his bones. Hasek swore and nearly dropped his gun, yanking it up again and aiming- "Don't." Jansen snarled. Hasek froze, finger on the trigger. "I wasn't fucking joking when I said bullets didn't work. He laughed. I do not want to piss off something that laughs at high caliber bullets." He lowered the gun, hands shaking. Jansen didn't feel much better; the old grief of his mother's passing felt abruptly fresh. The cry from the man at the wall came again, the same raw, aching grief. "West!" The pain was quieter this time, but no less brutal. Hasek backed away from the window, averting his eyes. Jansen stayed, watching. Not that there was much to see, just a man in a heavy coat with gloved hands braced against concrete. Jansen flexed his hands in a vague attempt to warm them. "Why doesn't he just go through?" Hasek whispered, "If he can get past everything else, why not the Wall?" "I don't know." They waited for the scream to sound again, but there was nothing. Jansen settled back in his chair, and Hasek stared resolutely out the other window. When he looked again the man was gone. The snow was unmarred. Neither of them heard, from the other side of the Wall, the faintest reply- "East!" 


End file.
